


The Burden of Atlas

by PC_Hopkins (orphan_account)



Series: Not At All Like a Grecian Myth [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Kink Meme, M/M, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-26
Updated: 2012-06-26
Packaged: 2017-11-08 14:31:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/444203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/PC_Hopkins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kink meme fill: "(After the Fall) Mycroft keeps up a brave face until he is alone, and then he breaks down and Greg is a shoulder to cry on."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Burden of Atlas

It’s two in the morning. Day after the funeral. Greg’s not asleep, and he doesn’t quite know why. It could be because tomorrow – well, today, now, he supposes – is Monday. It’ll be the first Monday in twenty years that he won’t go into work. He thinks he’s earned the right to stare blankly at his flickering television, watch as the news presenter’s mouth moves and no sound comes out. But he can’t stop the newsbar from showing –  _suicide of fraud detective, corruption suspected in Met_  – or the titles:  
  
FUNERAL OF FAKE DETECTIVE  
 _Sherlock Holmes dead at 26 after years of faking his identity_  
  
After the two weeks that Greg’s had, he’d be lying if he said the funeral was nice. Sherlock would’ve hated it, that’s for sure. At least, he thinks Sherlock would have. Greg still doesn’t know who was right, or wrong. He doesn’t think it matters much, anyway. Sherlock’s dead. John’s gone. He didn’t even turn up to the funeral. Can’t blame him, really; it was basically one big media circus. Reporters everywhere, the incessant droning of,  _“What was your relation to Mr Holmes? Is there any truth in corruption within our police force? How long do you think you can keep your position as DI after this?”_  
  
If he could feel anything, he thinks it would be anger. He’s sort of glad for the numbness. It’ll wear off soon. (The thought rises, unbidden:  _and then where will you be?)_  
  
Then there’s a knock on the door.  
  
Greg’s had a lot of those over the years. Sherlock doesn’t – didn’t – have any sense of time, always barging in at midnight to harangue Greg about a case, the name of a witness, any number of details he himself thought were trivial, but turned out to be of utmost importance in finally nailing the culprits. Actually, to be truthful, Greg hasn’t had so many knocks on the door as he’s had Sherlock simply breaking in. When he feels – felt,  _felt_  – like being polite, he’d knock, but when was Sherlock Holmes ever ruled by such paltry things as societal conventions and common decency?  
  
He gets up from the couch, nearly spills his cold tea everywhere, and shuffles over to the door. There’s a mirror facing the door, and he catches his reflection before wishing he hadn’t. He looks a mess; still in yesterday’s suit, nicest one he has, but covered in tea, ink, tears, and what looks like mucous from where Molly was crying on him. He doesn’t really care, stares at his haggard face with its one-week stubble and too-dark eyes, and thinks, ‘who are you?’ He shrugs, and opens the door.  
  
It’s Mycroft.  
  
“Hi,” Greg says quietly, momentarily surprised. He’d thought, ‘see you tomorrow,’ meant more in the daytime than some ungodly hour in the morning. “Wasn’t expecting you.” He can barely see Mycroft, but for the general shape of his face, the dull glint of the hallway light off his eyes and omnipresent – and tightly clutched – umbrella.  
  
“I can’t stay,” is the immediate reply. Mycroft peers behind Greg into the darkness of the flat with terribly big eyes. “I had wished to…” He trails off, kneads at the umbrella handle like a bizarre, large cat, and turns that wide gaze onto Greg. There’s no end to that sentence – though the DI (not anymore, he reminds himself) does privately wonder what he was going to say.  
  
Letting Mycroft freeze in the sub-zero temperatures of the hallway probably won’t help though, and Greg steps aside, opening the door further. Mycroft slides past, lithe as anything. For a moment he’s pressed up against Greg, trembling like a leaf in a breeze, before suddenly he’s not anymore. Greg feels both cold and needy. He pushes it back down.  
  
Mycroft settles on the lone, brown and battered kitchen stool gingerly. He’s not looking at Greg. He hasn’t let go of the umbrella. (He doesn’t for the whole time he’s here.)

“Want a cuppa?” Greg asks, because what the fuck else is he meant to say. It’s dark out, the kitchen is cold as hell, they’re both probably exhausted, and he’ll be fucked if he’s going to get through this without the true liquid courage of a good cup of tea. “I’ve got, uhhh…” There’s a box of it near the toaster that he shakes temptingly at the man. Mycroft finally glances up, actually mouths the label, and a flicker of a sneer plays around his mouth.  
  
“PG Tips?” Then his eyes drop, face resuming that terrible blankness, and the flash of that haughty disdain is smothered once more. He nods.  
  
It’s the first time Greg thinks of the dead Sherlock without feeling like he’ll throw up his guts in tight grief – and it’s something to the effect of,  _Sherlock Holmes, you fucking selfish prick._  
  
He’s pretty sure anger is one of the later stages of grief. He almost wishes he paid attention in those psych lectures. Maybe he’d’ve actually passed the course and gotten into a career. Doubtful, but no point in lingering on it.  
  
Probably as a side effect of the anger, Greg quite suddenly wants to scream. Instead, he says to Mycroft, “Sorry, ran out of Vintage Darjeeling,” and is rewarded with a (guarded, so fucking guarded, and  _tired_ ) smile. Tea is made. Overbrewed, actually – by accident, as always. He spends too long staring at Mycroft, watching how his face is cast into shadow because of Greg’s piss-poor lighting. It makes his face look eerie. Eerie, and so very drained, as if somehow the Atlas burden he carries already has become too much. Sherlock’s death is the last straw, and soon everything will break.  
  
Greg wants to be there to pick up the pieces. He’s not sure Mycroft will let him.  
  
Actually, he’s not sure why Mycroft’s not already screaming at him and throwing microwaves like John did in a scarily impressive show of pure rage. But then, he knows Mycroft. He’s not fire; he’s ice. Maybe the penalty for playing such a fucking dumb but ultimately key role in the suicide is not to be shouted and raged at, but cut off without so much as a word or a by-your-leave. He’s fairly certain Mycroft’s not going to have him assassinated. Fairly.  
  
For minutes after he’s poured the tea, they just sit there; Greg propped up on the counter, occasionally taking a sip and feeling worry crawl its slow way across his chest, and Mycroft staring down at the tea vacantly.  _This is the most dangerous man in the nation,_  he remembers Sherlock snarling after he’d put cologne and big grin together and come up with, ‘he’s fucking my brother.’  _You have no idea what he can do to you. What he_  will  _do to you._  
  
If that isn’t the fucking definition of irony, he doesn’t know what is.  
  
“Hey, um,” he clears his throat, “you know I’m here if you need anything.” There’s no response to that, which is fair enough because after he says it he realises that Mycroft wouldn’t be here if he didn’t know that. Even hit for six, he’s still three miles ahead of Greg.  
  
He finishes his tea – Mycroft still hasn’t touched his – and sets the mug down hard to try and get a reaction. He gets a faintly lost, blue gaze. It’s enough.  
  
“Come on, you, into the living room; we’ll die of hypothermia in here.”

The worry becomes actual anxiety, the weight of it like lead in his stomach, when Mycroft lets Greg nudge him into the room and onto the cheap as shit sofa that’s twenty years past it’s prime. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t protest the touch, doesn’t bitch about the sofa like he does normally… doesn’t do really much of anything. Greg is pretty sure he’s still breathing, so that’s a plus. The light’s only slightly better in here, but he can see that Mycroft’s also growing a beard. It’s not an improvement.

Greg’s scared. Honestly scared. That’s the third new emotion of today. By the end of it he thinks he’ll be exhausted. The fear’s not the kind where the only thoughts running through his head are, “ _fuck, he’s got a gun, I’m going to die_ ,” or even when he heard about Sherlock’s death and wondered, “ _what happens now?_ ” It’s a new kind. It neither screams, nor shakes; it simply whispers, “ _everything’s changing. Can you keep up?_ ”

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t fucking know. 

As Greg goes to sit on the even more uncomfortable armchair, Mycroft murmurs, “Stay with me.” So he sits on the couch instead, tucking his legs up under himself and trying to maintain the delicate balance between too much and too little in pressing against his lover. Ex-lover? Another thing he doesn’t want to think about right now.

The news is obviously not what either of them want to watch at the moment. Mycroft probably doesn’t want to watch anything, just sit in silence, but Greg can’t do this, can’t calm his thoughts and be what Mycroft needs without finding some way to occupy his more riotous thoughts. Crap, late night telly would be perfect. He flicks the channel, only to find re-runs of _The Bill_. His chest feels tight and hot. He changes the channel.

The tenth time he does this, a hand settles around the one he’s got on the remote and clicks the off button. Mycroft’s version of saying, “ _for fuck’s sake, stop it_.”

He looks at Mycroft. Mycroft doesn’t look at him.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.

“Not especially.”

“Okay.” A pause. “You’ll let me know if you do?”

“It’s likely.”

“Okay.” He nods, to emphasise how okay everything is.

Nothing’s okay.

Sherlock Holmes is dead and Greg can’t even fucking console his brother because, Christ, he doesn’t even know how to console normal people about these sorts of things.

He settles for putting a hand on Mycroft’s back, and running his fingers lightly over the heavy fabric of his jacket. The man shudders, but remains silent, leaning sideways ever so slightly into the touch. This is also new. This is also scary. Greg’s other hand comes up to hesitantly stroke the side of his lover’s face. When he still doesn’t get a reaction, he goes to pull away, only to have it suddenly seized in a strong grip.

“Stay,” Mycroft repeats. He’s not sure if it’s a question or not, but soothes him with, “of course I will,” anyway, resuming his stroking with much more tender assurance. A while later, he moves forward and presses a chaste kiss to Mycroft’s neck, who shudders again. Other people would be weeping and wailing by now. Not him.

Was Mycroft going to try and do himself in now, too? Greg remembers (vaguely) the state he himself had been in after his twin sister's intentional overdose. Still has a scar on his wrist from where he'd missed his vein with the knife, then luckily chickened out and gone to the hospital. After that it had been the slow death by alcoholism, a gradual corroding of the liver and a burning desire to just step in front of a bus one night and end it.

Sherlock didn’t – doesn’t, still – deserve this. He should’ve died in some blaze of glory, or after growing old and keeping bees or something weird and fantastic like that. Not by jumping off the roof of Bart’s. Greg still doesn’t really want to believe it happened. Instead, that he’ll be able to go into work tomorrow, and Sherlock will stride in, coat and John fluttering in his wake.

Mycroft sure as hell doesn’t deserve having to live through this. To pick up the pieces of himself in one day and carry on like everything’s fine and his brother hasn’t just been buried in the ground before his time.

“Greg,” the man says softly. It’s the first time Mycroft's called him that. He leans forward again and kisses his neck, letting his weight rest on Mycroft’s side.

“I know,” he kisses that pale patch of skin again. Mycroft makes a quiet noise. It sounds like the way Greg’s throat clicks when he’s trying not to cry.

“I’m sorry. I’m so…” Another click. “So sorry.”

“It’s not your fault—” Greg can feel the faint shivering through his mouth, hear the near silent ‘whoosh’ of Mycroft’s head as he shakes it. “No, no, it’s not,” he insists, “you couldn’t have done a thing, it’s finished now, we’ll get through it. You and me, yeah? We’ll make it, it’s fine, you’re fine.”

“ _Greg_.” It’s a sound of thinly veiled desperation, like he’s the last lifeline on a fast sinking boat. When Greg pulls Mycroft’s head down so it’s resting on his shoulder, the man doesn’t protest. It’s only when Greg goes to press his face against his neck that he feels something wet brushing against his forehead, and realises Mycroft’s very quietly crying. It’s only a couple of tears, but it still shakes him, plucking at his heart-strings like a body being lowered into the ground hadn't.

Greg presses into the man even more, trying to make him better by somehow transferring his love through physical contact. Whether it works is debatable – more likely it’s a combination of that and the way he keeps repeating, “it’s not your fault, don’t think that, shhh, it’ll be fine, we’ve got time, I’m right here, not going anywhere…”

“I was meant to…” _protect him_ , is what Greg thinks is the unspoken end to that whisper of a sentence. Greg rubs small circles on his back. He can’t say that it’s okay, because it’s not. None of this is okay. But he’ll make do, he thinks, feeling Mycroft shudder once briefly, then calm beneath his touch. They’ll make it through. Together or alone is the question, but, whatever comes, they will.

They stay like that for a long while until Mycroft begins to make murmurs about needing to go home and shower and change clothes, today being a new and godawful day. Greg presses him back against the wall near the door in a slow, measured, ( _please-god-don’t-die-I-couldn’t-live-without-you-don’t-make-me-try_ ) kiss, before returning his quiet goodbye.

The next time he sees Mycroft, three months have passed, he’s back to his cool, condescending self, Sherlock Holmes is very much alive, and Mycroft _knew_. 

Greg is alone when he cries himself nearly sick.

It doesn’t occur to him until later – after three nights of solid drinking, the final thing that tipped him back on that slow slide – that maybe _this_ was what Mycroft was asking forgiveness for.


End file.
